Salustiano (État A) - Affiche censuré Semaine Sainte Seville 2024 - 2020s

Salustiano García Cruz (born in Villaverde del Río, Seville, 1965)

Official poster for Seville's Semana Santa 2024
Large format (intended for shop windows and public spaces)

Color print on paper, large-format copy, preserved in excellent condition.

Context and importance

In 2024, the prestigious official poster for Seville's Holy Week was entrusted to the contemporary artist Salustiano García Cruz, a Sevillian painter internationally renowned for his singular aesthetic, characterized by intense red backgrounds and figures of almost iconographic purity.

Presented in January 2024, the poster instantly sparked strong controversy: the bold and stripped-down treatment of the image, far from the traditional iconographic codes of the brotherhoods, provoked reactions from numerous hermandades. Following pressure, a large part of the edition was withdrawn, censored, and destroyed by decision of the General Council of Seville’s Holy Week confraternities, thus preventing its normal public dissemination.

As a result, only a few rare large-format copies destined for window displays escaped destruction, giving this work exceptional rarity and the status of a unique witness to an episode of cultural and religious controversy in contemporary Spain.

The artist

Salustiano (born 1965) is one of the most notable Spanish contemporary artists of his generation. His work, exhibited internationally (Spain, United States, Italy, Asia), sits at the crossroads of the sacred and the profane, reinterpreting the codes of classical painting with hyper-realistic technique and intense monochrome backgrounds.
This official commission for Seville, though censored, enhanced his aura and marked an important milestone in his career, underscoring the disruptive power of his pictorial language.

Historical importance and market

Thanks to its extremely rare status as a censored official poster, withdrawn and destroyed shortly after its release, this piece is part of the history of major artistic controversies in sacred art.
There remains today only a tiny number of copies, sought after by collectors of contemporary art, Spanish painting, and Sevillian memory.

Condition: good conservation state, fresh colors, minor defects

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